


death by a thousand cuts

by remi_wolf



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 04, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Soulmate AU - Freeform, just a little bit, just in the second chapter, not actually but it can seem similar, you get cuts when the people you love say something that hurts you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24988843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remi_wolf/pseuds/remi_wolf
Summary: In a world where those who love you can physically cut you with a misplaced word, those that are particularly sensitive can find themselves littered with scars and marks from a thousand comments over a lifetime. Living in a world stained with the supernatural certainly doesn't make it any easier. The pressure of the world, to save it or damn it, can make these marks even deeper and all the more common. Still, that couldn't stop one Martin Blackwood from loving Jon Sims any less.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Martin Blackwood, Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 212
Collections: Beguilements and Distractions





	1. fresh wounds

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea yesterday morning, and have subsequently written 4,000 words of this strange AU I've come up with. Literally, someone's cutting words can cut you if you love them enough, and because I love Martin so much, of course I subjected him to this. It's similar to a soulmate AU, however anyone can cut you if you care about them or what they think of you enough. It's a fun little idea I've come up with, so who knows. Might end up continuing it with other characters. As it is, have this weird little thing focused on Martin's love for Jon.

The first cut that Martin noticed appeared on his hand. Really, he assumed that it had simply been because he had caught it on a few files, or the sharp edge of one of the cabinets. It certainly didn’t occur to him that it might instead have been from the casual rejection of Jon’s when he had asked him if he wanted any tea. After all, it was the first day on the new job, and while he knew that he already had a crush on his boss, he certainly didn’t expect that a refusal to have tea on the very first day would have been enough to give him a small cut on the side of his hand. 

The second and third cuts went mostly unnoticed. He was working on an unusual case with Tim, off trying to track down the owner of a small flat nearly an hour outside of London, if not a full two. He had crawled through bushes to try and find a window to get into the cottage, if only to make sure that he could impress Jon with everything he was trying to do. Of course, the quiet dismissal he heard on the other side of the line telling him he needed to try harder to get into the building next time was enough to make those few cuts and scrapes all the more obvious.

Really, it wasn’t until Martin noticed the fifth cut—a far deeper one that was jagged across his ribs—that he realized what was happening. Jon had startled him when Martin walked into his office with a mug of tea, and Martin had, naturally, spilled it across the three most recent files that they had been working on. While Jon had finally warmed up to Martin’s tea, that didn’t necessarily mean that he particularly cared for Martin interrupting him to give it to him. So, naturally, Martin usually tried to sneak in when Jon wasn’t paying attention. Usually, that worked out fairly well. Today, it got Jon startled, and that startled Martin, and the files ruined. It earned him nothing more than a scathing lecture for longer than Martin liked to admit, and Martin, who had been fighting off ridiculous tears from being startled and scared, barely kept himself from bursting into sobs in front of Jon. 

Tim, luckily, had noticed the cut as it started bleeding through the carefully crisp dress shirt Martin wore in an attempt to feel as though he was properly dressed or presentable, if only to make a good impression on Jon, and helped him clean up. The two of them, huddled in the corner of the break room set aside for Archival Staff, quietly looked over the jagged mark, and, naturally, Tim, felt a need to ask about it. 

“Who is it? Someone here? I didn’t think I heard you on the phone at all.”

Martin sighed softly, shaking his head as he tried not to make it obvious just how much the alcohol on the cut hurt. “No one. I don’t know what I did.”

There was a long pause, stretching between them. Obviously Tim didn't believe him, and the annoyed little hum he made didn't pretend to hide his doubt at Martin's words.

“I get them from Sasha, sometimes.”

Tim’s voice startled Martin, and he blinked as he glanced over at him before looking away again. “Jon. They’re always from Jon anymore.”

Tim snorts a quiet laughter as he hands smooths a bandage over Martin’s soft side. “Jon doesn’t deserve you. Has he ever gotten any cuts?”

“You’d know better than I would. It’s not as though he actually likes me.”

“Then why do you like him at all?”

Martin sighed softly, leaning against Tim as the man buttoned his shirt closed. He liked the look Jon had when there was a particularly good mug of tea in hand. He liked the way that Jon seemed so focused to get answers to particularly difficult questions. On a more superficial level, he liked the way Jon’s hands looked, wrapped around a warm mug, or the way Jon’s voice sounded while he recorded the particularly tricky statements. After a few moments of thought didn’t provide any answers that could be spoken aloud to Tim, he shook his head. Jon was Jon, and he was Martin, and while he might only ever contribute to delays, he was smitten with him. Jon was Jon. And he was Martin.

The cuts continued appearing, though not as often as they had in the past. A small cut here after Jon told him off for whisking away a mug of tepid tea from hours before. A deeper cut when Jon told him to go away and leave him alone, and that his tea was a useless distraction. At least that last one had healed a little bit when Jon had come back to apologize and asked to buy him lunch in return. 

Hardly a week went past when Martin didn’t end up with some sort of cut, whether it was shallow and barely more than a paper cut, or one of the deeper gashes that had him begging Tim for help before he had to go home to recover. And, in return, he helped Tim with the few that appeared on his skin, though they weren’t nearly as common. It was a fairly easy existence, though. They had weird cases that they couldn’t solve, but it felt nice in the easy push and pull of life. 

Of course it couldn’t last. 

Of course not.

Two weeks spent huddled in his room. No phone, a computer that was dead, and no electricity with which to charge it. At least it wasn’t that cold, and he had plenty of blankets, but that didn’t ease the terror. He knew something awful would happen to him if he let even a single worm bury into his skin, and when one tried to leave too soon, he found a worm wriggling under his door as he risked pulling the rags away from the door. Whether the feeling of the worm eating him was worse than the feeling of shoving a corkscrew into his side, he wasn’t sure, and he certainly didn’t want to ever repeat the experiment again. 

Two weeks, and he finally left his apartment and ran to Jon, handfuls of dead worms with him before he collapsed in Jon’s office, trying not to fall apart immediately. 

Jon believed him, though, even if it was because of a flesh hive woman using his phone. Parasites, really? Martin never wanted to see another worm as far as he lived, even if it was a mundane earthworm. 

At least Jon opened up the Archives to him. Martin had been at the Institute longer than anyone, and he knew better than everyone that no one was supposed to live in the Archives, but he couldn’t imagine going home. He couldn’t even imagine going home long enough to collect his clothes, but at least he had enough savings to buy a few things. 

The cuts were less frequent still. Jon had softened, somehow, and while he still snipped at times, it didn’t cut nearly as deeply as it had before. It certainly wasn’t nice to live in the Archives, but at least he could tolerate it. Even if there were some silly mistakes made during the particularly late or early mornings.

“Martin! Good lord man, if you’re going to be staying in the Archives, at least have the decency to put some trousers on!” 

Martin jumped as he heard Jon’s voice, not at all anticipating that, and he couldn’t help the ridiculous motion to cover himself, even if it meant that he was quietly cursing when the tea in his hand spilled all over himself. He stammered out an apology, and some fragment of a conversation that he didn’t remember. What he did remember was the way Jon’s eyes traced over the scars across his soft body before he managed to disappear to the room he had claimed as his room. He wasn’t sure which was more mortifying, that Jon had seen him almost entirely undressed, or if Jon had seen the scars from the cuts across his body that he had been too sensitive to receive. 

In another world, Jon would make his way to the office where Martin was sleeping and ask about the cuts and scars across his body. In this other world, they would talk, and Jon would realize just how much he needed the kindness of Martin, and they would grow to a place where such cuts and scars were few and far between and they were far away from the terrifying Eye of the Institute. 

In this world, however, Martin remained quietly curled up on his cot, listening for Jon to walk past, or the sound of worms coming to devour him again, until the alarm on his phone told him that it was 9 o’clock sharp, and it was time for him to pretend that the world was normal, that the world wasn’t out to kill him, and that he was working at a perfectly normal archive. 

Life came quickly after that. Prentiss attacked, and then Martin’s body swiftly started getting more and more scarred as Jon’s paranoia cut deeper and deeper. Even Tim couldn’t hide them for long, and while all of them had the circular constellation of scars from the Prentiss attack, Jon’s cutting paranoia forced Tim and Martin to try and disappear home as much as often to ensure that they didn’t entirely fall apart under the harsh lines of pointed words and distrust. Even so, they were exhausted constantly, unable to push back, though Tim tried to fight and Martin tried to keep the peace. 

As soon as it started, though, it stopped. Perhaps life dealing with the paranormal was just like that, but the constant terror of everything just stopped all of a sudden when it came time for the Unknowing. Jon was in a coma, practically dead. Tim was in a grave, actually dead. 

That hurt Martin more, somehow. He might be in love with Jon, but Tim had always helped him with the cuts and scrapes and other nasty marks that appeared on his skin. Day in, day out, regardless of who caused them, he had helped Tim, and Tim had helped him, and here he was, stuck with a sluggishly bleeding cut over his heart that refused to heal as Jon remained dead to the world. 

It only started to heal when Martin turned to Peter. The Flesh’s attack had been brutal, and it couldn’t happen again. Jon wasn’t waking up, so he had to turn towards someone else. If Tim was there, they probably would have fared better during the attack, but...he wasn’t. He wasn’t, and while Martin might cry himself to sleep some nights trying to forget that, it didn’t change anything. At least there wasn’t another attack. Not that he knew about. 

And the cuts still lingering on his body had begun to heal better, too. 

Peter was cold, and frustrating, and in general an annoyance more than a pleasure to be around, but that simply meant that Martin wasn’t under any delusion that Peter cared about him. He didn’t have to care in return, not even as the carefully-wrapped packages of clothes appeared on his flat’s doorstep, and he certainly didn’t have to worry about any cuts appearing on his body. 

For the first time in, well, as long as Martin could remember, he didn’t have cuts appearing on his body. With his mother dead, and Jon in a coma, he simply didn’t care enough about anyone to be cut too deeply by their words or actions. Or maybe that was the Lonely’s influence, crawling into his bones and finding a home there in a skeleton hollowed out and scraped raw after a lifetime of rejections and cold reality. 

Even when Jon woke up, he didn’t find himself getting cut quite as easily. But then again, he wasn’t around Jon very often. It wasn’t until he felt a cut, deep along his ribs, that he realized he could even be hurt by Jon still. It startled him from the quiet fog that he had settled into, and he tracked Jon down to the coffin. He didn’t even care that he was bleeding through the silk shirt that Peter had brought for him, nor that he was staring at the unmoving wooden surface with dozens of tapes around him. It was difficult enough to think past the confusion of how Jon could have cut him so deeply without a word and simply by disappearing into the coffin, but he had, and Martin had been forced to endure the quiet lecture from Peter, the first cut from Peter, before he could return home to bandage his body and figure out what to do now. 

And what to do became caring for Jon from afar, to keep an eye on him and keep himself as separate as possible, if only to continue his plans to keep everyone safe by distracting Peter. 

He wanted to join Jon when he was asked. He desperately wanted to, and he had needed to disappear almost immediately to bandage the cuts that had appeared on his face after the conversation where Jon asked him to run away with him. Peter wouldn’t have cared for them, and Peter had already looked disappointed when he came in nearly a week later to see the healing cuts, but at least he didn’t say anything. 

He didn’t say anything, only telling Martin that it was time, and so Martin joined him, and then Martin was plunged into icy fog.

At least his cuts healed. Not that it mattered, because nothing mattered, but at least he had that. They would have been fussy on the beach he found himself on, but at least it was quiet, and things didn’t hurt. Not the old scars that he had carried with him throughout his entire life, not the newer ones he knew matched the ones somewhere on Jon’s body from refusing to disappear with him. It was quiet, and his body didn’t hurt for the first time in his lifetime. 

But Jon appeared in front of him, cutting through the fog and Martin found himself focusing on a pair of poorly-healing cuts, almost exactly matching his own.

“I see...I see you, Jon. I see you.”

The sobs that spilled from Martin’s lips couldn’t be stopped, even if the salt of his tears hurt against the cuts, but he could feel something, and the warmth of realizing that Jon was here, pulling him out of the frigid beach, was enough to chase away the worst of the chill. Jon walked with him, led him out of the Lonely, and then they ran further, until they could collapse and finally, _finally_ soothe away the hurt from all of the cuts that the other received over their lifetime.


	2. healed scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a post-script, a scene set in the Scottish Cabin, before the Apocalypse, where Jon and Martin are able to heal, if only for a little while. Jon's perspective, as he and Martin share a quiet evening healing in front of the fireplace.

The night was cold, and dark, and while the cottage had some level of light and electricity on a good night, it certainly didn’t have any on the stormier nights on the rare occasions that they had to deal with a proper storm. Of course, with their luck, the second day they were in this safe cottage of Daisy’s was a proper storm, one they were both caught in on the way home from getting food at the local market in the tiny village. 

But there was a fire they could start, with thick logs that could burn bright and warm for hours and hours if they paid attention to them properly. Martin could manage that, and Jon was content to allow Martin the quiet pleasure of providing the warmth and comfort that a fire brought. It allowed him to watch the flickering light pass over his dark cheeks, almost giving his pale hair the copper appearance that it had before the Lonely revealed the toll it had taken on the man, but more than that, it highlighted the gleam of freshly-healed skin and scars on his cheeks. He knew those two lines had to have been caused by him, somehow, when he asked Martin to run away with him, but how he could have cut Martin so deeply, he didn’t know. He supposed he could try to Know, but he didn’t want to do that. Didn’t want to intrude and risk hurting anyone because of that.

“How many scars are mine?”

Martin jumped and quietly cursed as the flickering flame of the match got too close to his fingertips, and Jon winced, frowning at himself. He should have waited until Martin properly finished with the fire. It didn’t seem as though Martin minded too much, even as he bit his lip and turned back to the fire. A small crease formed between his eyebrows, and he lit another match. This time, with Jon remaining quiet, and Martin able to properly focus on starting the fire, it lit quickly, and Martin settled back to curl against Jon’s side again. His comfortable body pressed against Jon’s sharp lines and angles felt nice, and safe, and Jon turned to pull him closer, properly onto his lap. 

“Jon! Jon, really, I’m going to squish you!”

“Then I’ll be squished and happy. And you’ll be more comfortable while you answer my question.”

There was another quiet noise of protest from Martin before he settled down, getting more comfortable on Jon’s lap. Jon felt remarkably like a pleased cat as he wrapped his arms around Martin, holding him firmly on his lap as they settled into a brief quiet while Martin thought. 

“A good number. To be honest, I didn’t keep track, but...maybe half at this point? A lot of my earlier ones have faded by now, so most of the ones that are left are either from you or my mother, but..." Martin sighed as he trailed off, shrugging before leaning over to rest his head on Jon’s shoulder. “There’s a couple from Peter. A handful from Tim, still, but otherwise, they’re mostly yours or my mother’s, Jon.”

Jon took a deep breath, trying to ignore the way that it shook and trembled as he filled his lungs, and he carefully reached up to play with Martin’s tight curls. “I’m sorry. I...I should never have been so awful to you. Ever. It was entirely unwarranted, and I know that I wasn’t being fair, but—”

“It’s fine, Jon, really. It’s behind us now. We get to try and move past that as well as possible.”

That wasn’t much consolation, and Jon chewed on the inside of his cheek, trying to swallow back the further apologies that he wanted to offer Martin like a pagan offering sacrifices to their god. “You never deserved it.”

“Jon. You can’t tell me that you don’t have scars from me as well.”

Jon sighed as he thought about that, and he shrugged. “I never had many cuts in the first place, Martin.” He thought over the ones that he remembered, and he shrugged. “Naturally, I had some from my grandmother, but I was always a clingy child that took everything personally. Georgie cut me deeply when we broke up in university. Elias managed a couple. Tim, really, managed the most that I can remember. You were always far too kind to me.”

“That’s ridiculous. I was awful after you woke up.”

“Not particularly. No worse than anyone else.” Jon hummed as he thought about that before shaking his head. “No, you were probably the best to me then. Yes, there were a few cuts, but mostly...yours were shallow. It wasn’t until the end that you properly hurt.”

“When I refused to leave with you.”

Jon made a quiet noise, a hum of assent as he continued focusing on playing with Martin’s hair instead of the cuts that he could see on his face. 

“Can I see them?”

“What?”

Martin sighed, glancing away and curling into himself. It was only by virtue of the way that Jon was holding him that he knew Martin was still in his lap. Why he seemed so ashamed to ask this, Jon didn’t know, especially since it seemed reasonable. He just hadn’t expected Martin to ask something like that. 

“Your scars. I...I want to see them. I want to know which ones I gave you.”

Jon shook his head quickly. “You don’t need to do that.”

“But I want to.”

Jon looked at Martin, slowly loosening his grip so that Martin could turn and look at him better. At least Martin didn’t leave his lap, turning as well as he could so that he could look at Jon and gently brush his thumb against the fresh scars that mirrored the curve of his eyes on his cheekbone. They remained quiet for a little while, before Jon finally adjusted, pulling off the old t-shirt he was wearing—to be honest, he probably stole it from Melanie while they were all living in the archives—off and throwing it to the side. Really, there weren’t many scars at all on his dark skin, especially not ones that could be easily seen in the dim light, but Martin’s hands found them still, gently tracing over them and pressing light kisses to the skin there. 

“Can I see yours? I’m..." Jon sighed as he looked at Martin’s hands, having caught his wrists. He couldn’t handle the soft touches, not when he didn’t deserve such light and gentle touches, as though he was something fragile and precious and deserving of care and attention.

“Yeah, Jon. You can see mine, too. Let’s lay down, though. More comfortable that way.”

Jon smiled at Martin’s words, and he let Martin move, spreading out the blankets in front of the warm fire. They might still be damp from the storm, but they were quickly warming up between the closeness of their bodies and the warmth of the fire, and as Martin tugged off his shirt, Jon joined him, hands smoothing over his soft skin. 

“You’re beautiful.”

“You are too, Jon. Promise. I love you. No matter how many scars we gave the other, we’re getting better. We  _ are _ better.”

Jon smiled, pressing a soft kiss to Martin’s lips. “We are. I have you. I love you, too. No more scars for either of us.”

Martin smiled, nodding and tracing over a few of the particularly bad scars, ones that he hadn’t given Jon, but Jon had still received over the past years. “No more scars at all. We’re safe, now.”


End file.
